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Rod McPhee: The two faces of Cameron
IF only the image of David Cameron's face on those Tory billboards were real. I'd love to clamber up a ladder and kick his teeth in.
I've never been a fan, but when he has the temerity to state "WE can't go on like this" hatred knows no bounds.
Forget the airbrushing. The Tim-nice-but-Dim pose. Set aside, if only for a moment, the bewildering promise to 'Cut the deficit, not the NHS', (to which a nation screams: how?).
The key question is this: Who is WE, David? When you say WE can't go on like this, what do you mean exactly?
I'm guessing I'm not the only one who will have a slight foaming at the mouth as a result of these billboards either. The only consolation is that using Cameron in the run up to the forthcoming general election appears to be the Conservatives' joker card. But they've played it way too early.
They've also made a big mistake trying to echo Blair's "Because Britain Deserves Better" campaign which used the same solitary, presidential-style portrait shot.
Cameron just isn't Blair. He remains a sketch of a statesman and his blue blood past still attracts suspicion, not least because he's tried to cover it up. In contrast Blair had little to hide. His distinctly un-Labour background actually endeared voters.
Together
He certainly didn't try to sell himself as being in it with your average Joe. He knew our pain, but never tried to kid us he felt it.
Cameron, however, well, he wants us to think that he and the general public are in this together. Us and Him. Dave and Joe Bloggs. From Beeston Hill to Notting Hill, we're all feeling the pain of recession. Except we're not, are we?
Because while the rest of us are juggling our credit card demands, household bills, loans and all those everyday expenses which jump up and bite us on the bum, you come from a long-line of affluent aristocrats, don't you David?
As most teenagers leave their local comprehensive, face accruing tens of thousands of pounds of debt at university only to face an uncertain future, you were funded through Eton, Oxford and were never going to end up as a burger-flipping graduate, were you?
And while most of us are wondering if we're going to be added to the long line of unfortunate souls made redundant, David is unlikely to be put out of his job anytime soon, unfortunately.
The ordinary men and women of this country probably can't go on like this, but privately-educated Oxbridge toffs will always get along just fine.
Is this really disgusting?
IN A world filled with war, famine, disease, John Barrowman and international terrorism I find it simply staggering that someone would put pen to paper to complain about the appearance of a man in drag which featured in last week's Yorkshire Evening Post.
Actually, it wasn't just any man in drag it was none other than Frankenfurter, one of the principal characters in The Rocky Horror Show which is coming to The Alhambra, Bradford, in a couple of weeks.
Yes, believe it or not, a lady wrote in to let us know that this was "disgusting" and anyone who found it amusing must have a very weird sense of humour.
Amazing isn't it? That in an age when the globe is plagued with so many ills, when there is so much to be angry about, so much to protest over, that the sight of a bloke in fishnets and a basque should prompt such a strong objection.
Perhaps the fact that Frankenfurter was standing next to a blond man wearing nothing but a pair of animal print trunks might also have made her blood boil. But, so what?
This tongue-in-cheek image of cross-dressing won't suddenly see Leeds lads burst out of closets they never knew they had or send them running into the lingerie section of their nearest Ann Summers.
And even if they did, is that so bad? Shouldn't everyone be able to do what they like, wearing whatever they like, so long as it doesn't seriously infringe on anyone else?
The fact that the image of someone looking different should prompt such an aggressive reaction is the very reason some people feel forced to live miserable, hidden lives for fear of what society might think of them.
Besides, I'm just checking here, and, I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure nobody died as a result of this picture being published. No. It's just two blokes – one in trunks, the other in women's clothes.
Now, please, just lighten up.
Riotous time in the snow
C'MON, did those cops who were this week caught sledging on their riot shields really have to get reprimanded? After all it's traditional for us Brits to be overwhelmed by giddy abandon the minute the snow comes.
It's also part and parcel of our culture to grab anything we can possibly find and head down our nearest icy slope. And I mean ANYTHING.
Only last weekend I visited the perfectly-formed gradients of Roundhay Park to be confronted by all the conventional sights of people on wooden sledges, plastic sledges, plastic bags, lengths of tarpaulin. Bog standard stuff.
But then, in an hysterical show of madness/ingenuity, people started turning up with all sorts – surfboards, inner tubes, blow up mattresses (single and double).
Next thing you know people were hacking the wheels off their skateboards, arriving with baking trays, sheets of perspex, huge expanses of kitchen lino. I even – and this no word of a lie – saw an attempt to go down the slopes on an ironing board.
So, if anything, I reckon those Bobbies caught sledging on their riot shields should be reprimanded for lack of imagination. I mean, policemen? Riot shields? It's a bit obvious, isn't it?
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Weather for Leeds
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 0 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
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